“smörgåsbord” included an overview of the day’s festival programming, plus Brands of Sweden presentations, such as • tours of Ericsson’s corporate headquarters; • an introduction to 4G by TeliaSonera, sponsors of the LOVE media center; and • a polished Volvo presentation (official wedding car) that switched smoothly from Swedish to flawless English because of the one reporter in the room who did not know Swedish.
Commercial? Yes, but each presentation further explained a complex aspect of producing the Royal Wedding, whether high-tech 4G bandwidth or transporting 250 royal guests efficiently in 85 custom-designed, eco-friendly cars (reinforcing Stockholm’s Green Capital of Europe status). Catering always featured the best and most typical Swedish foods, the price being a reporter’s willingness to hear a corporate presentation.
Photo courtesy of Charlotte J. DeWitt
MEDIA: AN EVENT WITHIN AN EVENT Key to any frontline awareness campaign is good press coverage, and both the Foreign Ministry and the City of Stockholm invested heavily in media courtship. A total of 2,300 journalists including 700 from abroad were accredited by the Foreign Ministry to cover the wedding. Many of these journalists also registered for accreditation with LOVE Stockholm 2010. Putting this in perspective, there were 2,000 police assigned to the wedding. Each entity, the State and the City, ran a press center—one with a national focus as appropriate to the Royal Wedding; the other, a city focus in association with LOVE Stockholm 2010 and its partners, Brands of Sweden. LOVE’s Media Center was hosted by Ericsson, TeliaSonera, and IKEA. Each press center was staffed by friendly, multi-lingual assistants, with special daily briefings and all the comforts of home: fully equipped computers with internet; password-protected wifi connections throughout the city for journalists; multiple television monitors set to a variety of stations. Documentation, printed material, on-site experts. Free food, endless coffee, drinks. Quiet areas with ample workspace. Meeting room areas. Exercise equipment, lounges, pillows, cozy curlup and snooze areas at the LOVE Media Center. Late hours. Attractive furnishings. Strategic downtown locations. But more than that, it was the courtship of the press, particularly the international press, that was impressive—boat trips for lunch in the Swedish archipelago (30,00 islands) and orientation cruises with dinner under the bridges of Stockholm’s fourteen islands, for example, where Olof Zetterberg, CEO, Stockholm Business Region, explained why Stockholm is a good place for business investment while showing its state-of-the-art urban developments, such as Hammarby Sjöstad. Again, the “battle of the brands” was evident: Stockholm, as Europe’s first-ever Green Capital, aims to be fossil-fuel free by 2050; neighboring Copenhagen, a runner-up in the “green” competition, has targeted 2025 as its CO2-free date according to Ulrich Ammundsen, director of VIBE, Copenhagen’s new resource center for public events. The race is on. The two press centers offered journalists daily briefings. LOVE journalists’
Photo courtesy of Charlotte J. DeWitt
Once calling itself “the Venice of the North,” Stockholm now has repositioned its brand, proclaiming itself the “Capital of Scandinavia” over long-time rival Copenhagen. And if that were not enough, in 2010, it also boasts the title of Europe’s first “Green Capital,” a designation bestowed by the EU Commission.
2010
INTERNATIONAL EVENTS
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